Picking over the bones of with-profits

GOSLING'S GROUSE

The demise of with-profits is one of the great business stories of the last 20 years. Sadly, it lac...

The demise of with-profits is one of the great business stories of the last 20 years. Sadly, it lacks the exciting characters of Wall Street in the 1980s, as portrayed by Michael Douglas, or even the big brains behind the collapse of hedge fund business LTCM. But in pure number terms it's a big story. On an annualised basis, with-profits attracted something in excess of £30bn of new money and was (still is?) the basis behind great institutions such as the Pru, Standard Life, Norwich Union and literally generations of insurance companies. Where did it go wrong? I guess everyone will hav...